Zynga tests bitcoin payments on its website for games including FarmVille 2

The gaming company behind the online hits FarmVille and Words with Friends is now dabbling in virtual currencies.

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Zynga Inc.
/quotes/zigman/7720406/delayed/quotes/nls/zngaZNGA said Saturday it would begin testing bitcoin payments for some of its games. Zynga’s announcement, which came in a Reddit post, is working with bitcoin-payment processor BitPay to let users playing on Zynga’s website to pay with the virtual currency.

Shares of Zynga were up 1% in recent trade. Bitcoin spiked above $1,000 for the second time ever in the wake of the Zynga announcement on the trading exchange Mt. Gox. In recent trade, one bitcoin fetched $977.03 on Mt. Gox and $902.87 on BitStamp, another trading exchange.

Bitcoin has been touted as both a virtual currency and a payments protocol. The process of creating bitcoin, which has no central bank, pits computers against each other in a race to solve cryptographic problems. The correct solution is awarded a block of bitcoin, which currently amounts to 25 bitcoins.

“We are less excited about Bitcoin as a store of value and alternative to fiat currencies than about its potential use in facilitating transaction and improving payments efficiency,” said Steven Englander, global head of G10 foreign-exchange strategy at Citi, in a research note. The online discount retailer Overstock.com Inc.
/quotes/zigman/87370/delayed/quotes/nls/ostkOSTK said in December it plans to accept bitcoin in the second half of 2014.

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